Healing Chimaeron: Part 2

So after a lot of really good discussion on this topic and another kill of Chimaeron, I felt it a good idea to follow up on Monday's post with more consideration of healing this particular boss fight.

What I find most fascinating is the different ways druids have found to handle the situation:

• a) Lifebloom on tanks per normal, and spot-healing with regrowth/nourish and rejuv+swiftmend for the Low Health debuff.
• b) Lifebloom on tanks per normal, and spot-healing with HT.
• c) Rolling 3-4 lifeblooms in a group with a nourish rotation.
  

Each method has its merits, though I find I prefer method C for its lighter mana cost.


2 Holy Priests + Druid?
I have now done the fight with a priest/pally/druid team and with a 2priest/1druid team. I found the paladins best for tank healing of the three classes: with two priests, we decided to see if I (druid) could focus on the tanks while rolling a 3rd LB on myself, but there were unfortunate occasions when a double-strike came too soon after a massacre and I couldn't get the tank's health high enough. My suggestion for mitigating that comes down to that tank's communication: if they know it's coming soon and don't think they'll survive, calling out for cooldowns (NS+HT, or other healers' help) could aid in preventing the necessity of a battle res. It's hard to call, though. We had this tank-gib happen twice out of 7 attempts; one of those times was on our successful kill attempt, where a battle-res brought the tank back up in time to get back in there and continue. So, it is manageable, but unpleasant compared to a more dedicated tank healer. The priest in the tank-party was helping where she could, but she also needed to prioritize clearing the low-health warnings from those not covered by the lifeblooms.

Alternatively, the druid could focus purely on tank healing, and the priest in that party will cover the rest. Tossing out the third stack of lifebloom gives the druid more time to cast bigger heals on the MT without needing to restart their refresh cycle of nourish casts. Might try that out next week, if we have the same healer composition!


2 Druids + Priest?
Jen of Stories of WoW asked me (and anyone else willing to ponder on it) for suggestions on how to heal this fight with two druids + priest. I haven't raided with a second resto druid yet this expansion, as our moonkin is now dual-specced as a tank, but I think having one of those two druids using the lifebloom healing rotation (3-4 lifeblooms rolling) and the other focused purely on tank healing could make this work. The priest would probably need to cover PoH on both groups during the fued/massacre to help the druids out, though.

I would probably set it up like this:

• Druid 1: LB both tanks (2 targets), alternating with other tank-specific heals. Purely a tank-healer.
  
• Druid 2: LB on both resto druids and their 5th party member (3 targets), using the 3-stack healing rotation I posted earlier this week. Use the 4th block of the cycle to throw regrowth/4th LB/swiftmend to tanks: swiftmend should be easy if the first druid is keeping up rejuv/regrowth on the tanks.
  
• Priest handling the other party on their own, and aiding the tank party as necessary during fued.

Thoughts? Discuss :)

Healing Chimaeron

Most of the bosses I've faced so far have been dealt with in a similar fashion for me:

1. Keep lifebloom on a tank.
   Pop ToL if I want to roll lifebloom on two tanks. Refresh it with nourish or, if necessary, HT. I'm pretty comfortable with rolling two lifeblooms, though sometimes fumble them from range or spell pushback.
   
2. Rejuv and swiftmend on raid damage
   ....trying to place the green puddles appropriately for maximum healing effect. Nourish, lifeblooms, and NS+HT if necessary and the tank doesn't need it more. Pop ToL if I need to spam lifebloom across the entire raid.
   
3. OoC procs for regrowth or HT.
   As the most expensive heals, why not make them free?
4. Tranquility!
   ...if the raid is spiraling the drain, and WG if it's less dire.

Generally speaking, it's worked, if a bit underwhelming on the mana management when I need to raid heal. THIS DID NOT WORK FOR CHIMAERON.

Chimaeron took my healing methods and said, "Okay, let's see how much I can screw with you. RAID HEALING, GO!"

I panicked. An entire raid constantly near death is a healer's nightmare to begin with, but the concept of just keeping everyone afloat above 10k health is a manageable one after you spend some time seeing everyone constantly drop to 1 hp and not die, due to Finkle's Mixture. You adapt; you say, "okay, as long as I keep you above 10k hp, you'll all live." I added a little Grid debuff warning for the Low Health debuff.

But I still was panicked.

This was not the standard healer panic of seeing lots of low health bars... no, this was the panic of facing a fight I didn't think I could, in current druid mechanics, handle. The raid damage was too high, and my HoTs weren't ticking fast enough to top people past 10k before the next health-dropping ability splatted them to the stone floor. And in my attempts to make it work, I was going OoM by 90% boss health.

I was upset. I was frustrated. And then my raid leader chucked me in a vent channel with the other healers and said "make it work."

Silence. My frustration boiling over, I waited for the others to speak first. Was this boss even possible for us right now? I wasn't sure. I didn't know if the others could handle the raid healing, and I knew that I alone couldn't handle the tanks.

You know what?

We made it work.

Props to Togopan (holy priest) and Draukadin (holy pally): I was the third wheel in that fight.

We grouped all of the ranged DPS in one party with the holy priest, who was chain-spamming Prayer of Healing in all its party-only glory (edit: yes, it can be cast on other parties, but we had him focus on only one party). He set up a lightwell in melee range. We put the other two healers (me, holy pally) with the melee (one cat) and the tanks in the other group: two healers dedicated to this group. And while Draukadin used Beacon and Protector of the Innocent and Flash of Light and Holy Radiance and all those wonderful paladin spells, and while the two tanks taunted the boss back and forth during the double-strike to keep from being sliced in half by Chimaeron's claws, I built a healing rotation and stuck to it.

A healing rotation.


Healing Rotation: Backstory

To truly appreciate my situation, you have to understand something about healing rotations. I was once told, back in Wrath, that I was a horrible player because I didn't use a healing rotation. This was coming from a sub-50 alt whose main was a caster DPS class, of course: a player whose entire world is focused on damaging a mob, not healing someone. Not triage. The concept of not using a casting rotation was a foreign, evil, wrong, bad, ludicrous idea to him. Of course, him saying I was bad because I didn't use a healing rotation to triage my raids became a huge running joke in my guild. Me with my Bane of the Fallen King title, world-2nd 10-strict guild to get it, was bad because I don't use healing rotations.

Healing rotations don't work, generally speaking. Healing is a more fluid creature, reactive to the health pools, aggro, gear, and decisions of the raiders around you as the combat situation shifts, new creatures coming in, walls of fire charring people, aggro being stolen or swapped, debuffs being gained, and so on. Healing is a triage situation: who is taking the most damage, and is more important to the overall survival of the raid? What spell is best for the situation: how fast are they dieing, is the mana use worth the cost or is it sustainable, will it leave me unable to save someone more important later? Rotations were not for such dynamic situations. Rotations were for healers who weren't capable of quick thinking, healers who couldn't do their jobs.

So, healing rotations were a joke. Something we laughed at.

The irony of the situation struck me hard last night, as I started testing how many lifeblooms I could roll and what I could fit into the refresh cycle during a break in the raid.


The Rotation

With party 1 covered by the priest, the paladin self-sufficient with his own heals and the tanks half-covered by the paladin as well, that left me 2 people I absolutely had to keep up, and then whatever else I could throw at the tanks. Okay, I know I can roll 2 lifeblooms: why not a third, if that's all I'm doing?

Shortly after the pull, I popped Tree of Life and got my lifeblooms rolling: four to start, with a focus on keeping three main ones up. If the fourth dropped, I didn't sweat it. I told the paladin which of the tanks I was keeping a constant lifebloom on, and that's all that really mattered. Lifeblooms on me, tank1, and melee cat. These are the three I would try to keep up come hell or high water. While ToL was still active, I popped lifeblooms on tank2 and anyone else I could reach, and started my nourish rotation. I went straight down the last three players of my grid frames because our alphabetical arrangement made it pretty easy.

1. Nourish self.
2. Nourish tank1.
3. Nourish melee cat.
4. Cast something shorter than nourish/HT: regrowth, or instant casts. WG, or lifebloom on tank 2, or regrowth on a tank, or on someone who had lingered with Low Health for too long. I could, if I was tight in my GCDs, cast two insta-casts (rejuv + swiftmend, or two LBs) before needing to refresh the cycle, but this was risky.
   
5. Rinse, repeat.
   

With this, I could have kept 4 full stacks of lifebloom rolling by using LB on tank 2 and nourishes on the other three, and at times I did have this going. But I appreciated the flexibility of the fourth block of my rotation to sometimes cast regrowth during an OoC proc, or use WG, or swiftmend, and letting the 4th lifebloom bloom itself on tank2 was often beneficial.

On the plus side, I had absolutely no mana issues: nourish and lifebloom are our cheapest heals. It was only when I fumbled the stacks and lost one (or all) and I had to use the more expensive heals instead until ToL came off of cooldown and I could restart my lifebloom stacks that I then had any sort of mana problems. In future attempts, I will be looking to cast my innervate on the poor OoM holy pally instead.


Beyond my Heals

Due to the cast-heavy and time-strict nature of balancing 3-4 lifebloom stacks, it was beneficial that I was chosen to be the stack target for Fued. They stuck a big orange circle on my head and I stood near melee with the lightwell and it wasn't until about 20% boss health that I moved even an inch from that spot. Everyone would periodically move over and hang out and give me hugs while spamming their own survival/healing cooldowns (feral's tranquility, moonkin's tranquility, etc etc) and I kept chugging along with my healing rotation. They'd flee as the bot came back online and massacre was cast and poisons would start flinging around, and I was still standing there, trucking along through my rotation.

And then at 22% or so: I pop ToL again. I spam lifeblooms across the whole raid afresh, and tranquility, and get everyone as high as I possibly can because come the 20% mark, there's no more healing.

I look up. I see the boss before me, the Mortality debuff bright near my minimap, and I gulp. "Well, here goes," I say to myself, and start DPSing. I smile to myself that I have no DPS rotation. I spam wrath, and try to keep moonfire and insect swarm on the boss, while everyone in ventrilo is going wild with trying to survive as long as they can and DPS, and when it's finally my turn, I'm bearform and using frenzied regen and barkskin in vain hope of surviving more than a couple seconds, strafing away to keep my furry tail from his claws, even as I'm tugged across the room by a priest's lifegrip and Chimaeron swipes out and double-strikes my face.


An interesting fight. One that challenged me, as a healer, in brand new ways. While I would hate having a "healing rotation" as strict as that become the norm, it was a challenge that I enjoyed, simply for its deviance from the norm. I know better, now, my limits on how many lifeblooms I can roll at my current haste level.

See you next week, Chimaeron. I won't be panicking this time.

Two Weeks of Crazy

Incoming long ramble. It's been a while since I've posted, so I'm giving fair warning :)

I have greatly enjoyed my resto druid in Cataclysm. She has her strengths and weaknesses, as I have found, and they've led me to feeling rather happy with her as she provides a challenge for me. The weaknesses, of course, provide some entertaining lessons of their own.


CC, lol.
Healers have very low if any +hit. Avoid promising any CC to the party if you value your health bar. If you absolutely MUST use CC (because of running with a group of, oh, 3 warriors and a deathknight) then get your hots rolling on the tank before attempting to root/hibernate/cyclone/whatever! Or the tank will keel over dead because you were too busy running around screaming with your CC target chomping on your tail.

So, avoid being assigned CC as a healer. Of course, you can still use CC if you have the mana and time to spare... I find a quick cyclone can tie up a wildly swinging melee mob and give the tank's health bar a breather while DPS focus-fire down another mob.

Ultimately, though, my most-used CC has been Nature's Grasp. I have it bound to a mouse button in a lovely little barkskin+grasp macro that pops me 3 chances to root an offending melee mob that is trying to nom my furry hide. Yes, tanks should be rescueing their healer, or even a friendly helpful DPS with their own CC, but sometimes they're busy or distracted or dead or have things on cooldown because you know what? Heroics are hard. Or, sometimes, they're just blind idiots. Regardless, it's a CC I've found I want very quick access to.


AoE Healing?
...is no longer our forte. Wild Growth has a monstrous cooldown, and Tranquility's is even longer. Swiftmend has a cooldown for its use and subsequent green puddle of aoe healing, but the puddle itself is insufficient for healing more than a sliver of health at current gear levels.

...and ToL
Treeform has become my "OMG RAID HEALS NAO" cooldown as I then spread lifebloom across the raid like a rampant infestation of kudzu. If I need to pop treeform to begin rolling lifebloom on two tanks, I try to time it to coincide with an early point of a boss fight where I can make use of that extra lifebloom love I can share with the raid. Like with the Ascendant Council when Fluvi-whasisface starts novaing and for some reason beyond my comprehension we don't interrupt it immediately. I should probably go look up why we don't immediately interrupt the first cast, but I've been busy so I'll just type out here a note to myself to go look at it later. ;)

I do enjoy that we can roll lifebloom on multiple targets after ToL ends, by refreshing one or another with HT/Nourish. What I do not like is when my nourish cast, in an attempt to refresh it on said tank, is interrupted or fails due to the tank running out of range, or due to some giant monster leaping through the air and landing on my head, only to send me flying across the room as though I were a gnome to be punted. I think that this particular circumstance is a racial punishment brought down by the evil gnome overlords in vengeance against tauren kind.


Mana.
Mana mana. Doo doo, de doo doo. Yes, mana is an issue, and as Scythe so adequately described it to me, healer mana has become the raid's built-in enrage timer. If the tank pulls while I'm drinking back at the last trash pack, I usually let them die. If I go completely OOM, I have been known to run around bandaging players.

If anyone is taking unnecessary damage, I think it's okay to let them die or yell at them to pop cooldowns, healthstones, potions, bandages, etc. Or to, I dunno, GET OUT OF THE FIRE. Or maybe move when a debuff says you should move or you'll die horribly: is red light, green light really that difficult of a game?? Or when there's a flayer sitting there clawing wildly at the air and people think he's gonna give them a nice facial rather than attempt to julienne their bodies into dinner. Even tanks can move out of that, you know.


Pug Tank Egos.
....ugh. Okay, here's the scenario: guild group of DPS + healer, all with Bane of the Fallen King titles, gets a pug tank. My guildies know to CC when given a mark or directions, but this particular tank seems to think he can take everything. Mind, we're all in varying levels of blues as is the tank, and this is Heroic Grim Batol with massive packs of easily CCable targets, and have the CC available to use. So he runs in, nearly dies on the first few pulls, bitches about "Don't be Bad" when he looses aggro on things because he's got terrible threat (ahem, when healer gets aggro on things), and I sit down to drink after a pull. I say, "mana." He crosses the bridge and pulls one of the hardest roaming trash packs in the first hallway while I'm drinking down the hall at half mana.

You can imagine where this leads. I scurry across with my half mana and quickly try to save him with my limited healing cooldowns and getting hots rolling on him, while he's not using a single one of his tank cooldowns, and then, predictably, he dies from massive amounts of raw damage. He sighs and the group wipes and we start running back, DPSers beginning to suggest maybe we should CC something? His response: "Heal more. Stop being bad."

Me: "O_o ...you're joking, right?"
Him: "Not really."

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. I growl, literally, and initiate a vote-kick on the tank.

Unfortunately, the vote-kick tool may have somehow bugged, as it didn't give my fellow guidlies a chance to vote before it "failed" and went away. We're all in vent together at the time, and I simply said, "I am not putting up with this tank," and I left the party. I suggested they leave, too. We could find another tank. In fact, one of our guild tanks offered then to fill in for us.

Meanwhile, back in the party (I am hearing this over vent), the dpsers told the tank he shouldn't be pissing off his healers. His response, as I hear, was that "You guys can leave too, I don't care. I'm not the one with the 40-minute queue." Obviously, he missed the fact that they were queuing WITH the healer, who had a maybe 3-minute queue. Oblivious ego tank is oblivious. The DPS then vote-kick the offending tank from the party; this time it is able to actually be voted upon, and the tank is swiftly removed from the instance with a massive, ethereal boot.

Initiate re-invite of the seething Kaelynn and a helpful guild tank, we warp back into the instance, and clear the entire place without any problems. Of course, we all blacklisted the first tank to our ignore lists.

Who would've thought I had an inner paladin? RIGHTEOUS FURY!


Holidays with a Puppy
Travel/guests explosion. This was the first long-distance overnight trip with River, who at almost 6 months old, is a 60-lb puppy who can't sit still for long in the car. She tried sleeping in my lap during a 3-hour drive and that didn't work; she had to settle for just resting her head in my lap while I sang along to Glee soundtracks.

Both sides of my family have dogs of their own: dogs that don't quite know how to wrestle and play with other dogs. These dogs are people-only dogs that tolerate the presence of other canines as long as they leave each other alone.

River is not like that.

River is a puppy who thinks that every dog she meets will want to play with her, unless they're just old and grumpy. Ironically, the one dog we found she got along best with is a tiny little dachsund/chihuahua mix who is 14 years old and nearly blind: she just growled at our massive puppy and River backed off.

The others, sadly, mistook River's attempts at play as attacks. The youngest had been attacked by another dog before, so she freaked out every time River made a play-lunge at her, though to her credit she did TRY to play with River. She even play-bowed and brought toys over to my puppy. It was torture to River that every time she tried to play back, the other dog would then freak and snarl and turn it into a real fight. The other dogs just had no interest in playing chase or tug-of-war or wrestling, and would straight-out snarl and try to fight, misinterpreting River's overtures of play.

It was a learning experience for me, and for River. All of the dogs River has met prior to the family's are dogs that know how to play with other dogs. They wrestle and bite at each other in play, and chase and tumble and run into each other. Whether bigger than her or tiny, none have ever gotten hurt. It is play. But some dogs just haven't been socialized to be able to play with other dogs. I am glad I have been able to socialize River with other dogs, that she knows how to play with them: but I am going to have to teach her that not all dogs are willing to play with her.

Aside, she did get photos with Santa.


Shortly after the whole hectic holiday travel (in driving snow and ice, no less) I had to take River to get fixed. This means: cone of shame.

Contrary to most dogs, however, River seems oblivious to the cone of shame. Like, completely oblivious, to the point that she's nearly taken peoples' faces off while romping past them. It is merely a diversion that makes loud noises when she catches it on walls, doors, cabinet handles, corners, bowls, toys, sticks, bushes, the floor, the crate, people, etc. Something that makes chewing on her bone more of an interesting challenge. Something that, in itself, is a challenge to chew on. And, occasionally, an annoyance that she can't lick at her healing stitches.

Yes, I will get pictures up. I promise.

Now, the healing wound also requires that we try to keep her calm and docile, and not go up and down stairs, and be restrained by a leash while doing her business to keep her from tearing around the yard. Leash-walking a half-grown malamute who's been cooped up in "recovery" is an feat in itself, nevermind when it's done on a steep slope covered in snow and ice. It also doesn't prevent her from going absolutely bonkers when she's back inside, much to the amusement of the three guests we had over New Year's weekend (hi, Jae and Lundrac!)


New Years'
Lego Harry Potter, Rock Band, geeky movies like Dorkness Rising and Avatar, karate training (perks to having a 3rd degree blackbelt visit for a few days), and a giggly Kae after the others found she didn't mind the taste of rum + coke, provided it was properly diluted (I usually despise the taste of alcohol). All while wrangling a boisterous puppy with a massive cone around her collar who wasn't technically allowed to run and jump and romp and zip circles around the TV room, but did anyway.

I am still recovering from the past few weeks. I would like a day to just hibernate. But, alas, the "work" monster returned so I'll have to wait until Friday for that :)

Tips, Notes, and Miscellany on Resto and Mana

So I hit 85 and started hitting up heroic modes. Here's a collection of things I've learned from healing the 5 mans:

• Omen of Clarity is your Lifesaver

Use it for your expensive spells. It won't be consumed when you use nourish, though, so you don't need to cancel a nourish should it proc during a cast. Regrowth, Swiftmend, and HT will all consume OoC procs. Mana cost in order of expense: Regrowth (35%), HT (30%), Swiftmend (10%).

• Roll that Lifebloom

Keep it going all the time; only drop it if you've got an extended period between pulls from explaining tactics or going afk. Especially if you get that Gale of Shadows trinket :) It not only provides replenishment for your party, but it also is our cheapest heal, which is ironic after the WotLK version. Other bloggers have pointed out that we can keep two stacks rolling using nourish or HT to refresh them even after our ToL has ended. If the tank is taking very light damage but dps/yourself are feeling kinda squishy (some circumstances of this HAVE happened for me) then pop your LB on them instead for a short time.

• Innervate Early and Often

It's such a small mana return even in blues and greens that you don't want to wait until you're near-oom to use it. The longer you wait, the longer you're waiting on the cooldown when you're on your last dregs.

• Leave the CC to the DPS

You will rarely be able to spare the mana and GCDs to keep CC rolling on a mob, and without much in the way of +hit on your gear, you have a high chance of your CC missing anyway. If you want to try to CC something during an initial pull, assuming your HoTs are running already on the tank, then it needs to be a CC that is not 100% necessary. If it misses, just ignore it and move back to your primary job healing. The time it takes to successfully get your CC on a mob is time that your tank may die.

• Don't Cleanse Everything

Cleanses are expensive and can often be healed through. Some of them stack and these stacks are sometimes all purged at once with one dispel (ie: poisons in Vortex Pinnacle) or are cleansed one at a time... don't waste your mana and GCDs.

• Don't Forget Tranquility

It is a super-powerful AoE heal that can and will save the party, assuming you have the mana to be able to cast it.

• Take Care of your Gear

...and don't be like me and forget you can go buy iL346 blues from the points vendor when you hit 85. >_> Talk to your guild enchanters and feed them greens rather than vendoring them, so that they can provide you a few enchants that are also skill-ups for themselves. As for gems, while they are expensive at this point, you can, if necessary, socket cheap gems from earlier expansions just to net your socket bonuses until you can replace the gems with something better.

• Work with your Tanks

Run aggro towards them. LoS casters you have healing aggro on. Let them know if you need to drink; thank them if they're paying attention to your mana pool. If you need them to be popping more cooldowns, tell them. If they're being terribad and they're leaving mobs punching on you or casting spells at you in spite of your efforts to get them off (like standing right next to them and saying "HEY TAUNT THIS"), say so, or ask for CC on them. If all else fails, blacklist a bad tank and avoid having to queue with them ever again.

• Play Triage

If the DPS pulls aggro, it's not up to the healer to keep them alive. It's up to the tank and the dps to manage their threat. If you have the mana, then certainly save them, or buy them some time, but a healer's mana needs to go to keeping themselves and the tank alive. DPS can always CC aggro that is on them, anyway, and most have some form of threat dump. In addition, if they're being idiots who stand in cleaves (flayers in stonecore) or fire, let em die. They need to learn from their mistakes rather than be carried by kindness. As one of my res macros says: "I simply found it more mana-efficient to res you."

• Teach and Share

In spite of my above sentiments on the stupidity of DPS, it's only fair to give people a chance. A little note like "the flayers cleave, don't stand in front of them" and "if you jump mid-cast during quake, you avoid the damage" (both Stonecore) can go a long way to helping your sanity, assuming they listen. If they don't listen, that's when I take the "let em die" approach. With quests, sharing the limited quest spawns also helps lower frustration: if you're waiting for a spawn, take the time to toss a party invite to the players around you. Saves time and angst by lowering that competition, and engenders a more positive feeling of comaraderie among your fellow players.

• WATCH.

That rogue that just took damage: was that a cleave, incidental AoE, or did they just get knocked back into another pack of trash and your act of healing would draw them onto you? Keep your eyes peeled on the environment. I have had this happen during a boss fight (hello, Stonecore again), and I was able to with-hold my trigger-finger long enough to watch him vanish the aggro off (letting the trash reset) before I healed him, and that moment's wait on my part saved us from a messy wipe as I would otherwise have gained healing aggro.

• Thank those PuGs you Enjoyed

It will make them want to continue their good behavior. Things like a warlock saying "If I have aggro it's because I'm saving the healer," or a tank saying "Are you good on mana?," have stood out in my mind as PuGgers that I would love to play with again. Conversely, complaining about loot that didn't drop will make everyone else roll their eyes and think you're just greedy.

Druid Shifts and the Law of Conservation of Mass

I walk into these things way too easily.
Also, Alyae has not seen MASSIVETREEOFDOOMSHIFT, yet ;)

MD the HEALER!

The most baffling thing happened to me during a random dungeon run. The hunter was misdirecting to me. Me: the resto druid running around in cow form casting pretty green lights and efflorescence and moonfires.

Once? Must be an accident. I roll my eyes at the pug and continue on with a little laugh.

Twice? ...that's no accident. Eyebrow raised and growing irritated, I had to say something.


Yes. I had 6k more health than the prot pally, therefore the resto druid healer (who was not, incidentally, running around in melee at the time) must be the real tank and should be misdirected. This was followed by the resto druid casting /facepalm.

Lesson: the highest hp does not mean tank. Look before you misdirect, please ;)

Comic: Spell Rebellion

As I commented yesterday,
"Regrowth came out of nowhere and beat Nourish upside the head with one of our fallen tree limbs, and dumped the unconscious Nourish in the Undercity gutter. Nourish has not recovered from the traumatic experience, yet."

Meanwhile, Rejuv, Wild Growth, Swiftmend, and Lifebloom are out partying with the new girl, Efflorescence, and Tranquility is crying on Beranabus' shoulder.

Regrowth, Nourish, HT: a Short Analysis

Patch: 4.0

So I was playing with my heals last night.


You get one single 20% flat boost for having a HoT on your target
(trust me, I tried it with 1 vs 4). With HoTs,
Nourish crit for 9k.

Regrowth does this by itself on a shorter cast time.
Regrowth crit for 9k.

Healing Touch, same cast time, non-crit for 13-16k.
HT crit for 20-22k.

Regrowth (1.2s): 1223 mana/5k heal = 0.2446 mana/HP (not inc. HoT)
vs
HT (2.0s): 1398 mana/15k heal = 0.0932 mana/HP
vs
Nourish (2.0s): 349 mana/5k heal (if you have a HoT up) = 0.0698 mana/HP
(+ a renew on lifebloom timer)

There ya go.

• Yes, Nourish is Cheap.
  
• If you need a big heal to save someone's life, go with Healing Touch. It's far better HPS.
  
• If you need a tiny heal and have nothing better to do than roll your lifebloom, toss a Nourish.
  
• Lifebloom costs less mana than Nourish (244 mana). Use lifebloom to a roll a stack if you don't need the Nourish heal. If the Nourish is all overheal, you just wasted your time and mana.
• If you are running OoM and your target needs regrowth-size heals, but you have time to cast them, use Nourish; however, let lifebloom do the bulk of the work and avoid overheal on your Nourish as much as possible. If you have to, cancel a Nourish cast in favor of a lifebloom before it triggers, if it'd be overheal.
  
• Otherwise, ignore Nourish.
  
• If you get bored, try using Moonfire, IS, and Wrath instead ;)
  

/sigh. They f*cked up my go-to heal. -_-

Efflorescence: Know your Green Goo

By most reports and my own experience, projected textures is currently bugging to not actually show in spite of being enabled and graphics on ultra. I heard a little horror story about Hodir in a Ulduar run.

EDIT:
Fanthisa pointed out a fix for this, that worked for me and many of my guildies: interface->display->DISABLE the option to "emphasize my spell effects."

Regardless, you can still see the spell effects drifting lazily up from the floor in all their raid-eating glory. Except, now, some of those effects are not the notorious "bad," or even the fellow-raider consecrate or death and decay of neutrality. Some of them are good. Like the massive shiny domes of holy light, or the twinkling sanctuary of angelic aurora light.

Or the more easily mistaken green puddle of efflorescence.


Good green puddle:

• Leaves flying up in the air like a reverse autumn fall. This is symbolic of resto druids loosing their tree form, as their leaves drift upwards into the digital ether.
• Hazy green aura. The fact that it looks like many other poisonous, acidic, nuclear, or otherwise deadly hazy green auras is mere coincidence. Green is life. Green is nature. It's retribution for my complaints that our old tree form had wilted yellow leaves.
  

Bad green puddle:

• Anything else.

Got it? It's not that difficult, is it? No, of course not.

...

Yeah, let's go with some pictures.


Pretty straight forward on this one. Big green puddle, vs hazy green leafy light. If you mistake the moving green oozling that's slurping around trying to eat someone to be an efflorescence puddle, you have some serious awareness issues that I can't help with.

This next one is more tricky.


....yep.

Vinn diagram of hazy green.

If they add leaves to a bad green effect in a later instance, we're screwed. Let's hope we don't face off against the green dragonflight anytime soon. For now, if you see leaves falling up into the sky in your green puddle, you can assume it's safe.

Unless it's layered on top of a bad green.



....

Hrm.

Good luck!

Spell Use Changes: Resto

While we haven't learned any new spells, many of our healing abilities have changed significantly. I'm not exactly pleased with what has happened to my quick-fire Nourish, but as Regrowth has sped up, I'm not going on a rampage about it ;)

Rejuvenation:
It has a talented insta-tick when you cast it, akin to the tier 8 bonus. No major changes in use.


Swiftmend:
Talented, now applies a puddle of green goo under the target. It's like a light well they don't have to click. What this means is that, when WG is on cooldown but Swiftmend is up, you need to target your Swiftmend kinda like you do a Wild Growth, hoping to bomb a group of people with it. There is still the consideration of targeting the person who needs the direct heal the most, of course, so don't just treat it like a weak Wild Growth!


Wild Growth:
Longer cooldown. When you're in tree form, you can hit up to 8 targets with it (glyphed).


Lifebloom:
One target only, gone are the days of rolling it on two (or more) tanks regularly. When you're in tree form, though, you get that back: remember that, in case your ToL needs to be used to save multiple tank deaths. You can pop ToL and stack LB on two (or more) tanks. Lifebloom in ToL has a different spell ID, so these lifeblooms will continue to run even if your ToL buff wears off. Additionally, casting a lifebloom will proc replenishment on up to 10 raid members.


Regrowth:
Quicker cast, but the HoT is now one of our shortest, on par with Wild Growth in duration. When you're in tree form, it is insta-cast. It costs more mana than it did before, though! It is one of our most expensive heals. IMPORTANT: by cast time, it is replacing the original use of nourish as our quick casted heal. If you're having problems with hitting nourish instead by habit, I suggest swapping Nourish and Regrowth on your bars.


Nourish:
Longer cast. This may take some getting used to, if you are like me and used it fairly regularly as a quick top-off heal. It's not really worth the cast time if there aren't many HoTs on the target, so remember to go to regrowth first! However, if talented, you can use nourish to refresh Lifebloom on the tank: at 18% less mana to cast than lifebloom, this makes it far more efficient for rolling a lifebloom stack and not going OoM. Just remember that you need to begin casting it around 3/3.5 seconds (haste/lag/talents all impact it) to make sure it casts before the lifebloom falls off.


Healing Touch:
Still super-long (3 seconds), and 38% base mana makes it our most expensive heal (note: tooltip incorrect on wowhead as of posting). NS+HT, macro it, use it as an emergency. Yes, I have talented NS still: I like my emergency buttons, I am not a blanket raid healer. ;)


Tree of Life:
Tree form is what will take the most getting used to. Think of it as an emergency button that lets you:

• RAID EMERGENCY: Rapid-fire regrowth over the raid, rather than rejuv, in addition to giving you two more targets on Wild Growth. If mobs are overwhelming, your entangling roots is also now insta-cast as a tree, so use that CC!
  
• TANK EMERGENCY: Quickly pop regrowth back on the tank(s) and then stack lifebloom on multiple targets.
• BOREDOM EMERGENCY: rawr, I hassa Wrath spam! It synchronizes well with Fury of Stormrage's mana-reduction to wrath and free starfire procs.
  

Oh gods. Look at this. /facepalm. Well, we will be getting a remodel to it, but it's... decidedly "meh."

• Kae's hubby: So...happy or not happy with the new tree of life models?
• Kae: "Meh." They have more color than the old form, but only by race. They're still grumpy old tree men.
• Kae's hubby: Well...I think they are less grumpy and more ummm...ambivalent?
  

Have any more tips/tricks on spell use, for our changed spells?

Kae's Cata Resto-Talents Ponderings, Sept 2010

As usual, I am tentative about posting Cataclysm stuff when it's not official beyond beta testing and not as close to release as I'd like, but with the months ticking down and the resto talent tree still looking unpolished, I did want to dig in and voice my concerns with it.

First, to make a point, let's add up the total talent points in all of the trees:

• Balance: 41
• Feral: 44
• Resto: 45

45 talent points. Feral's 44 include talents that are specific to only bear or cat: specializations allow them to easily skip some that are inapplicable to their role, while resto has a very limited number of inapplicable talents (and that only out of pvp vs pve). The resto tree is a bit heavy on useful talents, making the talent specification process very difficult; nevermind attempting to still pick up some useful healing talents in the balance tree.


Talent Commentary

Moonglow, Genesis and NG (balance):
I'd like to see Nature's Grace and Moonglow (or Genesis) swapped in places in the talent tree. I don't think such a swap would impact moonkin badly, and it would save restos some wasted talent points off of a haste talent that is supposed to proc off of a DPS ability. I am mostly bothered by the need to spend so many points in DPS talents to reach the healing talents in the second teir of the balance tree, especially as we are unlikely to then be able to reach both healing talents and are forced to choose between half of moonglow or half of genesis (or to forgo healing talents in the resto tree to get 5 points to split between them).

Furor:
If mana is truly the problem the beta-testers are complaining of, I can see some restos looking to the 15% mana pool increase as a possible way to alleviate mana problems. While I don't think it needs to be moved, I did want to point it out, as it still is a talent of interest in the whole "how do I spec?" question.

The First Row of Resto:
9 talent points all useful to a resto druid. This is a heavy hand of points to have to spend. Naturalist is dependant on how often we are casting our longer heals. Blessing of the Grove could potentially be skipped if you can put those points instead into Genesis (which is a more powerful boost), but that requires you to forego Moonglow.

Genesis vs Blessing of the Grove:
BotG (2/2): 4% healing to rejuv. Genesis (2/3): 4% to all HoTs and swiftmend. Keep this in mind when building your own specs, as there are opportunities to replace BotG with Genesis, assuming you need to put points in Naturalist.

Fury of the Stormrage:
If we're having mana problems and need to actually be spending our GCDs on healing, will we have the time to throw around DPS spells? Wrath has a 2.5 second base cast time. Considering it is opening up a mana talent (Malfurion's Gift) for OoC procs off of LB ticks (rather than just spellcasts) I worry at the points being shoved into a flavor talent.

Swift Rejuvenation:
As a deep-tree talent, you can easily yank a point or two based on your haste. The talent allows you to have a capped GCD for Rejuvenation, without any haste on your gear. While it sounds like they don't want us capping to the 1second GCD from haste alone, this talent is one that is more flexible based on gear. In addition, some players may not even make good use of this talent without being impeccably aware of their changing GCD timer: a fluctuation from 1.3 seconds (for example) to 1.0 seconds depending on what spell you cast in the heat of a busy combat is tiny and easily missed. We all have an internal timer that we develop for our keystrokes around successful spellcasts, anyway, and it can be difficult to alter it for rejuvenation alone. So, when looking at this talent, you need to be honest with yourself about how useful it is at your gear level with 2 points, or if you would be better served with 1 point or 0 (compared to other talent options).


DPS talents: Take your Pick
Overall, it appears that we can't really get away with a pure healing build. We are currently forced to pick up a pure DPS talent somewhere. These are a couple options I created while toying around:

• Moonfire and IS: the insta-cast DoT spells: these are quick to cast, but cost you precious mana. NG and Genesis both build on these DoTs, as does Blessing of the Grove. With NG, each DoT will proc you 15% spell haste which will apply to your healing spells, which not only impacts your GCD (should you notice the proc and slightly faster timer) but also your nourish, HT, and regrowth casts. You could replace Genesis with moonglow to help reduce mana cost, as this particular build appears to be much more of a mana hog than the one below.
  
• Wrath and Starfire: with Fury of the Stormrage, wrath will have a cast time, but no mana. This also opens up Malfurion's Gift, making the build reliant upon lifebloom to be efficient: this is a build for tank healers, certainly (or some very glorious mana returns when you go ToL and blanket the raid in lifebloom). You can replace NG with Starlight Wrath to reduce your wrath to a 2-second base cast time, though the points spent in the resto tree will limit how many you can feasibly put into the balance tree. I left Swift Rejuv off due to the lifeblooming build this spec lends itself towards.
  

Point Adjustments: the Solution?
Ultimately, the resto tree is heavy on talents, and I think it would be best served by reducing the number of points it takes to max out some of the talents from 3 to 2, such as Nature's Bounty, Revitalize, and/or Living Seed and Efflorescence. This would free up more talent points to put into the more questionable talents like Naturalist, or into the balance tree's yummy healing 2nd-tier talents (for example, this build or this one, assuming that revitalize and nature's bounty were reduced to 2/2 rather than 3/3). Even 2 points freed up would be adored; 3 points would be quite useful as it would then reopen options like full Naturalist or Genesis+Moonglow, together with Swift Rejuv. This would also prevent the need to ignore or complain about DPS talents, as Blizzard seems to be pushing us towards picking up some DPS versatility.

Otherwise, swapping NG and it's DPS-triggered haste proc with either moonglow or genesis would probably make many druids happy.

Healing ICC10: HLK as a Resto Druid

Edit: This guide was written for patch 3.3. Alas, we can no longer roll lifebloom on two tanks anymore, as of 4.0. I suggest keeping it on the shambler tank, as their health tends to spike more with the enraged adds. Go ToL to roll it on both tanks towards the end, as LK's plague-induced-stacks start eating the MT. Similarly, lifebloom is now very cheap to cast and no longer grants mana back when it blooms, so those tips are also now outdated.

With repeated attempts into the sub-20% range, I'm ready to expound upon healing Heroic Lich King (10-strict). This fight very nearly requires that you have a disc priest in your raid: they will very likely be your co-healer. My own guild, Vortex, has chosen a resto druid as the second healer to aid in the final phase's AoE healing and movement requirements, but we are fairly confident that any other healer could handle that spot.

EDIT: well, we killed him, US-first and world-second kill for strict-ten's. I added a few notes to the final phase; this is the strat that worked for us!


Phase 1:
"WTF I'm tank healing?"

With the disc priest put to bubble-shielding the Infest, your primary job as the second healer will be keeping the two tanks alive. For the sake of limiting the movement of the DPS, don't stand with them: stand either in between the ranged and the tanks, or on the other side of the tanks from the ranged dps group. This prevents others from having to move away from your shadow traps. Also, always make sure you are within running distance of the adds so that you can drop off your disease on them. FYI, it is safe to stand in front of the Lich King: he has no cleaves or cone attacks.

Below is a general diagram of how we handle Phase 1. Light blue is the platform, light gray is the inner circle, blue dot is the useless ice blocked dude, and the dark gray is the outer, cracked ring of the platform. Purple circles are example shadow traps that we've moved away from :)


Rejuv, lifebloom, and regrowth: try to keep all three running on both tanks as much as possible. Use nourish around them, and cast it proactively rather than reactively. You should (hopefully) have between 1/4 and 1/2 mana left at the end of this phase, if DPS is strong. For the sake of mana, I recommend letting the lifebloom stack bloom off of one tank or the other (only one at a time) whenever possible, but here are a few conditions:

• do NOT bloom when both tanks are low health, as you can't immediately restack them; get one tank up to higher health before letting the other bloom.
  
• do NOT let both bloom at the same time or you'll be scrambling for GCDs to restack both.
• do NOT let the add-tank's bloom when s/he has an enraged shambler, or has two shamblers and there is no Tranq shot in the raid. Keep it rolling and bolster her with nourish.
  

Use swiftmend to pop a tank up while you are moving. Save NS for real emergencies, but don't be shy about using it and thus waste precious seconds in indecision that could kill a tank. The tanks will drop low from time to time. They will need to use their own cooldowns to help you out, ESPECIALLY if you have no tranq shot in the raid (no tranq shot is doable, but painful). Don't worry much about healing anyone EXCEPT the two tanks; you can pop wild growth on the main tank (MT) to spread wild growth out to melee, but the domain of raid healing should be left to the disc priest. Only help with raid healing if they request it and the tanks are both topped off. Otherwise, your raid heals will result in a healing gap on the tanks that the disc priest may feel the need to help with, which in turn results in a bubble gap that will spiral down to a wipe to Infest... or a dead tank.

Don't hit a shadow trap, and don't run in front of the shamblers. Be very aware of where EVERYTHING is around you: this can be difficult when you're glued to the tanks' health bars, but it is very necessary.

If you have ghoul aggro, don't let it stick on you long. Call out for a tank to taunt them off of you, or run them to a tank, if necessary: ghouls have a nasty habit of dazing you while you're trying to escape an incoming shadow trap.

---

Transition:
"Hope the RNG gods put enough diseases on the shamblers."

As LK nears 73%, get yourself towards the outer rim of the room without letting HoTs drop. Make note of how many adds are up, and definitely make sure the add tank maintains full HoTs. As the Lich King reaches 70%, he will transition as normal, and you can let HoTs momentarily lapse off of the MT until he begins picking up spirits. Mind that you don't cross in front of the shamblers while moving forward.

Make sure the group splits roughly half and half on the shelf, sort of like so:

We have the shambler tank cross over to the far right of this diagram, while the MT picks up spirits and tanks them in the center of the dps' cluster.

Keep full HoTs running on the OT until the shamblers are dead of diseases; the little ghouls won't hurt much and only require a rejuv or so to heal through. As the MT picks up and begins tanking the spawned spirits in the middle of the group, begin reHoTing him and keep the HoTs going, though allow your lifebloom to bloom off for mana. Use an innervate in this phase if you need it, otherwise use it early during the next phase.

---

Phase 2:
"Let's do the Defile Dance!"

As the group is running in to meet the Lich King again, get full HoTs rolling on the MT if they've dropped at all and be ready for some big hits, as the Lich King's buff stacks from Phase 1 may not yet have dropped off. Keep some HoTs rolling on the OT, as well, until the spirit she is tanking from the transition is dead: the MT will be taking far more damage, however.

Ironically, this is probably the easiest phase for me. While the disc priest is back to raid-bubbling around Infest, I go back to tank healing... but we only use one tank, so I don't have to maintain two lifeblooms again. In normal mode, we choose to swap tanks for soul reaper, but for heroic, we've moved to a single-tank strategy, using cooldowns for every reaper to shield the tank. This allows me to keep HoTs rolling on the MT at all times, and allows our OT (prot pally) to focus on just maintaining soul-reaper cooldowns and stunning the valkyr. The OT should periodically be taunting to ensure she maintains secondary threat on the Lich King in case the MT dies.

You will need to watch ALL timers. They are all important to you.

• Infest: if the timer is ticking down and someone is missing a shield (due to bubbling fail, disc priest taken by valk, or the target loosing their shield to standing in a defile), the disc priest needs to CALL OUT who is missing the shield if they will need help clearing the infest. In cases where 2-3 people in a party missing a shield, things like the moonkin or a feral druid using tranquility is a great split-second rescue; otherwise, the MT-healer can usually save those couple people. A ret or prot pally can be asked to use lay-on-hands to counter a disastrous infest, as well.
  
• Defile: the group needs to move out of the center circle to drop these. About 3-5 seconds before it goes off, run yourself up towards the throne side of the platform so that, if you're targeted, it'll drop the defile harmlessly out of the path of everyone. Just don't run far if a valkyr is about to spawn. We have most of our raiders drop their defiles up in this region, while a few of our dps scatter to the sides. The key is making sure the defiles are not in the center of the platform (it's hardest when it's on tanks) and that all raiders scatter from each other in the seconds before defile is dropped. Having a largely ranged-dps raid aids in this.
  
• Valkyr: be close to the center. It's the same as normal mode, which you should, by now, be able to handle :) My only note here is that you try to refresh lifebloom to full on the MT before the valk swoops down in case you're the one grabbed, so that the tank has more time with HoTs while you're in the valk's clutches. If you are the one grabbed, make sure to call it out, so that your co-healer knows they need to cover your job and so that others know they may need to blow extra cooldowns/potions.
  
• Soul Reaper: the raid needs to maintain a cooldown rotation on the MT, assuming you are not tank-swapping. As the reaper begins to tick off, spam nourish so that it will quickly offset the health drop, before the tank takes another hit. If you are tank-swapping, monitor it so that you can catch both the drop in health from the first tank, and the incoming hits on the second.
  

After ten zillion attempts, you begin to know the defile timers by heart. First Valk: wait for it to swoop down, then position yourself on the far side of the ice block for defile. After defile, move back in. 2nd Valk coincides with the 2nd defile: either may come first, though usually the defile comes right after the valk; move quickly, then regroup. 3rd valk, then move for defile, then regroup. 4th tends to coincide again. Etc.

For a general idea of the movement, refer to these diagrams:



Note that people are avoiding putting a defile puddle at their back, as compared to the dead center of the room. This is because if they were picked up, the valkyr would take them over that puddle, which would inhibit melee assistance as well as possibly drop them into the puddle when they are freed. Using a pair of example defiles, you can see by the red-tint where you don't want to stand when a valk is about to spawn (unless you're a warlock with a teleporter at your back).


As with normal-mode, make sure the group doesn't transition past 42% without grouping at the edge of the platform together. Don't let the group move to the edge until after a valk spawn, and mind defiles: push him to 40% only when there is no risk of either a) people getting caught in the middle during the transition or b) people getting valk'd while too close to the edge for a rescue.

---

Transition:
"Hai, I can haz mana?"

I generally heal everyone during this phase. Similar to the first transition, sans the adds, though I recommend having both tanks picking up spirits to split the damage they're taking; keep them both lightly HoTed, but you can give your lifebloom button a bit of a breather in favor of rejuv and wild growth, with nourishes to quickly boost someone who the Pain and Suffering debuff is stacking high on, or tanks.

Innervate again if you need it: the next phase will be intensive.

---

Phase 3:
"Ghost-bombs! FLEE!"

The group can just step onto the platform and work immediately on killing the leftover transition spirits. In the meantime, we had the MT and healers work their way towards the center platform to pre-position themselves; this worked because we had such mobile healers. This first bit doesn't last long: just get HoTs rolling on anyone who needs it, as the whole raid will shortly be Soul-Harvested. Also, make sure no one stands in front of the adds' silence-cones.

With the whole raid getting sucked into sword-land, group up immediately in the center, then follow a pre-determined "leader" (likely a tank or melee appropriately marked) around the room. Heal everyone. Rejuv-blanket, wild growth on cooldown, swiftmend as emergency. Use every GCD. This is going to be hard when you've also got to be following someone through the shifting maze of falling bombs. I really suggest having that leader be vocal in vent about movements, ie "going a bit towards the center" or "moving a bit further, watch the bombs behind us" or "hold up here, don't go too far," being the vocal shepherd while you're distracted by keeping everyone alive.

A few notes:

• The sword-phase is the best time for a bear tank to provide an innervate to healers.
• Anyone who takes an ankh, battle res, or soulstone after the group is sucked into the sword will have that time peacefully unmolested on the platform, where they can heal themselves, rebuff, and poke the Lich King. I don't suggest having people suicide needlessly for this... but it is a good use of people who get pancaked by spirit explosions.
  
• About 5 seconds before the sword phase ends, get HoTs restacked on the MT.
  

Defile will be cast immediately after you exit out, so begin spreading to the sides as soon as you zone back onto the platform. Focus on keeping the MT alive, and yell at the tanks if they split too far from each other; monitor the soul reaper timers closely. The OT should periodically be taunting to ensure she maintains secondary threat on the Lich King in case the MT dies. Stay generally out of the center of the platform, and run circuits of the outer edge. Slowing traps will go in the center, and the tank will run through the middle from time to time to set them off.

We kept non-tanks out of the center line of the room (north to south) aside from dropping traps, because they used this line to kite the Lich King back and forth each add spawn. We aimed to keep it free of defiles, and the soaker (be it the OT or a dispersioned shadow priest) would hop in to absorb a chunk of explosions; all other players needed to steer clear of it. If you, as a healer, get out of range of one of the tanks, let your other healer and the tanks know over vent so that they can cover appropriately while you get back in range.

You can take one ghost hit at a time (two if you have a priest bubble plus barkskin). Use your barkskin to help shield against impact. Spread out a bit from the rest of the group, and constantly be on the move so that you can pop rejuvs around the raid while keeping the MT standing. Don't stand right next to the tank in case a defile drops. A range mod set to 10 can help you with keeping clear of others who are taking an explosion near you.

Once the leftover transition adds are down, the raid will focus on dpsing the Lich King and killing the flying spirits. Just focus on staying alive and keeping the whole raid up, especially the MT around the Soul Reapers. Have your raid make use of all available CC and survival mechanisms to handle the spirits: moonkin typhoons, dispersion, frost traps, etc.


...good luck :)





Nazantia: "So that was Kae's fault?"

Watching for Tank Cooldowns

Patch 3.3

But you're a resto druid. Why?

While watching your own cooldowns and boss timers can be hectic enough on its own, there are times where sharing cooldowns with someone else is necessary to manage a regular, heavy-damage spike. As a resto druid, though, I have no tank-saving cooldowns: I am limited to a NS+HT macro for an instant big heal, which may or may not crit. All I have are "OSHIT" buttons; they have no special abilities beyond healing.

Alas, H-LK has shoved the idea of monitoring other peoples' cooldowns down my throat. In order to handle the massive damage without requiring tank swaps and relying purely on 10-strict gear, we've moved to a wild and crazy cooldown rotation that dominates our ventrilo chatter during attempts. Since they have determined that I am a beast at the final phase's AoE healing requirements, I have been drug into the hell that is soul reaper without a tank swap (because swapping tanks in itself often resulted in one or the other dieing, and my mana running dry from the dual-tank lifeblooming required). Also, if we don't have a tranq that night, then we get to play cooldown-dances during P1 for the shamblers, too! FUN TIMES!

While they don't use any of my abilities as a "tank-saving" cooldown, I *do* need to be aware of when there isn't one available, or that our expected cooldown is currently floating away in a valkyr's grip; if that is the case, I know I need to be prepared to dump some heavy, direct heals in to try to save them, and time a cast to heal just after the reaper but before any other damage hits the injured tank (which would easily kill them). Or... I have to prep for a hasty tank swap (which means stacking HoTs on the other tank) and possibly a battle res around infest and defile timers.

So, to the meat of my post: I want to collect and learn what the different cooldowns are, and memorize their icons so that I can quickly process that information without interrupting myself in the chaos that is hardmode Lich King. So, this post was born.

---

The Mod

I have used the mod RaidCooldowns as a way to monitor innervates and battle reses, ankhs, and soulstones for a good long while, now. It's useful in that it is based off of the combat log events, so that it does not require another person to have the mod installed in order for you to track their cooldowns. It's got its problems, like not realizing that Beranabus' tranquility is talented and set-bonused to have no cooldown, but that's just because it doesn't actively synch with other people (if they have a different cooldown than the base) unless they have the mod/CTRA/oRA2.

The interface is fairly self-explanatory. You can limit what shows up, and style and position the bars to your preference. Notice the icons: these are the most important part, because these are much easier to glance over and process than trying to read a long ability name tacked onto the bar in addition to the character name it's reading for. For the purposes of decluttering, I think it's best to learn the icon, and ditch the ability name from the bar.

There are other mods you could use, like oRA3, but this is the one I have experience with. I'm also quite certain that you can set up Power Auras to alert you whenever your target or focus has a tank-saving cooldown active, if your tanks are less vocal.

---

The Cooldowns

"Tank Savers"

A tank-saving cooldown is an ability that can be used to protect a tank from incoming damage or otherwise avert a tank's death from an incoming attack. These are often talented special abilities and can take the form of reducing the damage coming in, or increasing the tank's ability to resist or soak the damage without dieing. Some of these are personal, while others can or must be used on targets other than the caster.

Others

• Some non-tanks have a personal cooldown akin to a tank-saving cooldown, like Evasion or Dispersion. It's not a tank-saving cooldown because they aren't tanks :)
• Anything that is purely reactive or just a healing-ability is not a tank-saving cooldown, as it does not mitigate the damage about to be taken. They are useful, certainly, but they do nothing to shield the tank above what their current health and defensive stats can handle. These abilities include things like Nature's Swiftness and +healing received buffs.
  

Priests
"Tank Savers"

Guardian Spirit: anti-death. Provides a 40% +heal buff as well as negating one death.

Pain Suppression: damage-reduction shield. 40%; also includes a small threat reduction.


Others

• Dispersion: personal damage reduction. 90% (shadow)
  

Paladins
"Tank Savers"

Divine Shield: personal immunity, but reduces damage you deal.

Divine Protection: personal damage reduction shield. 50%.

Ardent Defender: personal damage reduction + anti-death. (prot)

Hand of Protection: shareable physical immunity, but target is unable to attack.

Hand of Sacrifice (single) and Divine Sacrifice (party-wide): shareable damage transfer to the paladin. 30% of each hit is transferred.


Others

• Lay on Hands: shareable extremely large heal based on the paladin's own health pool
• Divine Intervention: shareable complete-immunity and removal from combat. Wipe protection.
  

Shaman
"Tank Savers"

• none.
  

Others

• Nature's Swiftness: removes cast time from a spell, ie. heal (resto)
• Reincarnation: personal self-resurrection, sometimes referred to as "ankh up"
  

Warriors
"Tank Savers"

Shield Wall: personal damage-reduction shield. 60%.

Shield Block: personal block increase (physical damage). 100%.

Last Stand: personal health increase. 30%.

Stoicism via Bloodrage: SPECIAL. Usually causes a drop in health, but with 4-pc T10, it will provide a personal damage-absorption shield. (thanks, Koch, for pointing this one out!)


Others

• Intervene: warrior takes a hit intended for the target; can also provide damage reduction via talents (prot, 30%).
  
• Enraged Regeneration: personal heal.
  

Deathknights
"Tank Savers"

Bone Shield: personal damage reduction. 20%

Unbreakable Armor: personal armor buff. 25%

Icebound Fortitude: personal damage reduction. 40%+

Vampiric Blood: personal health increase (15%) and +heal buff.

Anti-Magic Shell: personal spell damage reduction (75%, unholy 100%)

Anti-Magic Zone: shareable, stationary spell damage reduction (75%). (unholy)

??? via Bloodtap: SPECIAL. With 4-pc T10, it will provide a personal damage-reduction shield (12%)

Druids
"Tank Savers"

Barkskin: personal damage-reduction shield. 20% (feral).

Survival Instincts: personal health-boost (feral). 30% (45% glyphed).

Enraged Defense via Enrage: SPECIAL. Enrage typically decreases armor, but with 4-pc T10, it will provide a personal damage-reduction shield. (thanks, Kaethir, for pointing out the proc buff!)


Others

• Frenzied Regeneration: personal bear HoT, glyphed for +20% heal-received buff.
  
• Nature's Swiftness: removes cast time from a spell, ie. a heal (resto)
• Rebirth: battle res.
  
• Tranquility (party): a channeled heal that is a powerful party-only rescue.
  

Pure DPS Personals
Other classes have personal "oh shit" buttons that you may wish to be able to recognize:

• Evasion: Rogue dodge boost, sometimes enables them to tank physical damage
  
• Cloak of Shadows: Rogue spell immunity, very short duration
• Vanish: Rogue aggro-drop
  
• Ice Block: Mage complete immunity, short duration
• Invisibility: Mage aggro dump
  
• Feign Death: Hunter aggro-drop, may be resisted
• Soulshatter: Warlock aggro-drop

Note that including these in your raid cooldowns tracking may create clutter that you do not need to know, making it difficult to pick out the important timers at a half-glance. RaidCooldowns will allow you to deselect cooldowns like these, so that you do not have to track them. This may help you immensely if you are, like me, still learning what the important icons look like.

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The Cooldowns, Re-Organized:

Tank Personal Cooldowns

• 
• /
• 
  
• /

Others' shareable Tank-Saving Cooldowns

• 
• 
• 

Other shareable "OSHIT" Buttons

• 
• 
• 
• 

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What I'd LIKE to have:

Yeah, yeah, I'm picky and possibly dreaming.

• A light-up "action bar" style row of abilities, showing what IS available for those in my raid to use, greyed out with a spiral-cooldown OmniCC type timer to show when they will next be ready. This would be limited by class and spec and if they're even alive. If it could also light red to say "hey, out of range or unable to cast cuz the guy's been stunned or is falling down a hole into an abyss of doom," that'd be great. ...I suppose that's what voice chat is for, but hey, I'm a visual person!
  
• OR at least a way to reskin the RaidCooldowns bars to DamiaUI skin... it doesn't block as much screen :) I've dug through the mod files but haven't been able to figure out yet what to copy, as the DBM skin template is a separate xml file and I'm a mod-script noob being distracted by a fluffy puppy. >_>